I'm here to talk about success. Right? The first rule of success is to have a vision. You see if you don't have a vision of where you go and if you don't have a goal of where you go, you drift around and you never end up anywhere. It's like you can have the best ship in the world, you can have the best airplane in the world, if the pilot or the captain doesn't know where to go, it would just drift around then would not end up anywhere almost like in the wrong place. So I was very fortunate. that I stumble on the my vision. I mean as you know, I was born in 1947 in Austria after the Second World War. And I didn't really like Austria when I grew up. I couldn't wait to get out of there. I couldn't see myself becoming a farmer or working in a factory or anything like that. Even though, my parents wanted me to stay there and had a normal life. My father wanted me to become a police officer like he was. My mother wanted me just to stay there and marry a girl in the name of Heidi hopefully. And have a bunch of kids and run around like the fun family in the sound of music. But that was their vision not mine. My vision was totally different. I felt that I was born for something special, for something unique, for something big. Do you know how great it felt that I knew where I was going? Imagine the majority of people don't know where they're going. When you have a goal, when you have a vision, everything becomes easy. Because remember that, in America for instance, when you study, you will see the percentage of people didn't like their jobs 74% hate their job in America. Now this is not much different when you come to Europe. The majority of people don't like what they're doing. Because they're really not doing it. Because they didn't have a goal and they'd followed this goal. They're just aimlessly drift around and then over sudden, if there's a job opening so they get their job. Because you have to work. But then when you work it's a chore. It's work. It's not fun. So if you think about only a quarter of the people really enjoy what they're doing in life, that is unbelievable if you think about it. So I felt so blessed that I knew what I was doing. It's like a medical students that studies and knows he wants to become a doctor. You know where to go. So I knew where to go. So people always ask me when they saw me in the gym in the Pumping Iron days. They say "Why is it that you're working out so hard?" Five hours a day, six hours a day and you have always a smile on your face. The others are working out just as hard as you do and then look sour in the face. Why is that? And I told people all the time that because to me, I am shooting for gold, in front of Mr. Universe title. So every rep that I do gets me closer to accomplishing that goal to make this call, this vision turn into reality. Every single set that I do, Every repetition, every weight that I lift will get my step closer to turned his goal into reality. So I couldn't wait to do another 500 pound squat. I couldn't wait to another 500 pound benchpress. I couldn't wait to do another 2,000 reps of sit-up. I couldn't wait for the next exercise, for the next half hour posing and all the kind of things that you have to do. You'll be a champion. And with the age of 20, with the age of 20, I went to London and I won the Mr. Universe contest, as the youngest Mr. Universe ever. And it was because I had a goal. So let me tell you something visualizing your goal and going after it. Make it fun. You got to have a purpose no matter what you do in life. You got to have a purpose. So that's rule number 1: Have a vision. Rule number 2 is Don't listen to the naysayers. Don't listen to the naysayers. Everything I ever did, the thing that I heard out of people's mouths was "That's impossible" "That can't be done" or "No" So whenever someone said to me "It can't be done", I heard "It can be done" When they said No, I heard Yes. And when they said "It's impossible", I heard "It is possible". I'm a strong believer what Nelson Mandela said that everything is always impossible until someone does it. Well, I'm gonna be the one that said to myself "I'm gonna do it and I'm gonna show it to them" Maybe it has never been done before, that's perfectly fine with me. But I am gonna do it. And I did not listen to the naysayers. Next thing, the third point that I'm gonna make to you is, before we sit down with you and talk about the rest of the three, is Work your ass off There is no magic pill. There is no magic out there. You cannot get around, you have to work and work and work. And it drives me crazy when people say they don't have enough time to go to the gym for 45 minutes a day and work out or to do something for 45 minutes to an hour to improve. If it is physically improve of it is mentally to improve. Imagine you read one hour a day, about history. How much you will learn after 365 hours? In one year? Think about if you study about the history of musicians, of composers, how much you would know? Imagine if you who work on the business and some business that you want to develop every day for an hour. Imagine how further along you will go and get. So it drives me nuts because we have. But people said we don't have the time. We have 24 hours a day. We sleep 6 hours a day. So that gives you still 18 hours. And there's someone shaking the head out here in front to say "Probably I don't sleep six hours. I sleep eight hours". Right? BUT JUST SLEEP FASTER. So we have 18 hours a day, the average person works around 8 to 10 hours. So, let's assume it's 10 hours, so you have 8 hours left. Then you travel around an hour a day. Maybe 2 hours a day. So now you've still 6 hours left. So what do you do with this 6 hours? What do we do with 6 hours? Then we eat a little bit. And we schmooze a little bit. Talk a little bit with people in ordered stuff. But you can see how much time is available if you organize your day. So you got to work hard. I mean, let me tell you something. When I went to America, I went to college, I went and worked out 5 hours a day and I was working on construction. Because in those days in bodybuilding, there was no money. We didn't, I didn't have the money for food supplements or anything. So I had to go to work. So we worked in construction. I went to college. I worked out in the gym and at night from 8 o'clock at night to 12 midnight, I went to acting class. Four times a week. Say I did all that. There was not one single minute that I wasted. I became very friendly with Muhammad Ali in the 70s. Muhammad Ali worked his butt off. And I saw it firsthand. Now I remember that there was a sport writer that was there in the gym when he was working out and he was doing sit-ups. And he asked him "How many sit-ups do you do?" And he said "I don't start counting until it hurts." Now think about it. He doesn't start counting his sit-ups until he feels pain. That's when he starts counting. That is working hard. And so you can't get around the hardwork. It doesn't matter who it is. I believe what Ted Turner said "Work like hell and advertise" You get it? Work like hell, go to bed and early early to rise, work like hell and advertise. So you work your ass off and then you let the world know about your work. That's what it is all about. Let people know if you have a company, if you have a movie, if you do a sports. Work your ass off, but then advertise and let everyone know. I hate plan B. And I tell you why. Because we have so many doubters as I've said earlier they eat the no sales. We have so many of those people did say no and you can't do it, it's impossible. That is okay because we just turn off as I said earlier and listen and hear that No being a Yes, You can't do it to Do it. You can do it and all that. So that is possible to do that amongst all the negative people around you. But when you start doubting yourself, that's very dangerous. Because now what you're basically saying is that "If my plan doesn't work, I have a fallback plan, I have a plan B." If that means that you start thinking about plan B and every thought that you put into plan B, you're taking away now that thought and that energy from plan A. And it's very important to understand that we function better if there is no safety net. Because plan B becomes a safety net. It says that if I fail then I fall and I get picked up and I have something else there, they will protect me. And that's not good. Because people perform better when there is no safety net. People perform better in sports and everything else if they don't have a plan B. To me, it is very dangerous to have a plan B because you're cutting yourself off from the chance of really succeeding. And the reason, one of the main reasons why people want to have a plan B is because they are worried about failing. What if I fail then I don't have anything else? Well, let me tell you something. Don't be afraid of failing. Because there's nothing wrong with failing. You have to fail in order to climb that ladder. There's no one that doesn't fail. We all fail. It's okay. What is not okay is that when you fail, you stay down. Whoever stays down is a loser. And winners will fail and get up, fail and get up, fail and get up. You always get up. That is a winner. that is a winner. Hey, we all lose. We all have lost us. This is okay. And this is why I say: Don't be worried about losing because when you're afraid of losing then you get frozen. You get stiff you're not relaxed. You got to be in order to perform well in anything if it's in boxing or if it is on your job or with your thinking. It's only happening when you relax. So relax, it's okay to fail. Let's just go all out and give it everything that you got. That's what it is all about. So don't be afraid to fail. This is one of my 6 rules to success. You can only feel complete as a person if you think about what can you do for your... fellow, member around you that maybe needs help. I felt like that everyone has a different motivation. Why you get into that? I was an immigrant going to America. And I saw how America was the most generous country in the world. I mean they opened up their arms to me, they helped me, they invited me for Thanksgiving dinner, the people they brought me a... The bodybuilders in the gym brought me plates to my apartment because I had no plates, I had no silverware, I had no bedware, I had no pillows, I had no blanket, I had no TV, I had no radio, I had nothing. They brought it to my apartment. They helped me. That's all that firsthand this generosity in America. And I said to myself, as an immigrant that is being embraced with open arms that I need to go and make sure that I give something back.
Insert "mom they're posting the same shit again" meme. The speech was great tho
I never understood Arnold's "sleep faster" thing that he says all the time. I mean I think I get what he's saying, like no excuses or whatever but it still doesn't make sense. I really wish I didn't have to sleep 8 hours but I do in order to be at 100%, unfortunately. Love all of the rest of his advice though.